An increasing number of banks and Wall Street firms that took bailout funds from the government under the TARP program want to give the money bank. One problem - the government won't let them. I'm not kidding.

If you want to see a classic example of how our government acts outside the law, watch this video with Glenn Beck ripping Connecticut's Attorney General a new one over the AIG bonuses. The good stuff starts about 1:30 into the video. Watch the AG squirm and stutter for 11 minutes as Beck continually asks him what law allows Connecticut's AG to take back the AIG bonuses (the eventual answer - there isn't one).

After watching Beck destroy this government clown, I only hope Beck, who lives in Connecticut, has his own financial house in locked-down airtight order. Then again, it doesn't really matter. If the government wants you, the government will get you.

As Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner outlined his broad principles for regulatory reform, which included government takeover and divestiture of private firms that posed a "systemic risk" to the economy, I started counting up all the private firms that posed a systemic risk in the current financial crisis. I came up with one - AIG. The only other systemic risk sized outfit I could think of was Fannie Mae, formerly a quasi-government firm, now completely a government firm. Fannie Mae bundled and securitized half the mortgage loans in the country, which included the lion's share of the subprime mortgages that melted down and are now referred to as "toxic assets."

What do you think the chances are that Fannie Mae will be broken up and divested ? Because it is a government entity, I would say the chances of that happening are near zero. I'm also waiting to hear when subprime mortgages are going to be outlawed so this won't happen again. I haven't heard a peep from the government about that either.

They say most presidents make the lion's share of their mistakes early in their administrations. The mistakes come from the on-the-job training all presidents must go through. President Obama is certainly proving that to be true. There are many examples.

1. The AIG bonuses. President Obama was outraged when he found out AIG was paying $165 million in employee bonuses with it's TARP money. Then it turned out Obama's own Treasury Dept. authorized the bonuses in Obama's own stimulus bill (that nobody in Congress had time to read before it's passage). Obama was really outraged at....Obama.

Back in September, 2008, as the subprime mortgage crisis reared it's ugly head, our government formulated the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to buy toxic assets from banks in order to make our financial institutions liquid agaiin. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson told America that if we didn't act immediately, we faced a complete failure of our financial system. There was not a moment to lose. About a week later, Paulson was given $700 billion to purchase the toxic assets. Our politicians blamed Wall Street greed and a lack of regulation for the subprime crisis.

The great state of Missouri has issued a government report about how to recognize potential militia members. The report is called the MIAC Strategic Report - The Modern Militia Movement. As a public service, I would like to share with you some of the signs that will warn you these dangerous militia lunatics, whom the MIAC report calls "domestic terrorists," are in your midst. Here's what to look out for, according to the report:

Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) says allowing AIG executives to keep their $165 million in bonuses is "rewarding failure." Barney is right. It is rewarding failure. What Barney doesn't say is, it was Barney Frank and company (the federal government, under both Bush and Obama) who enabled the bonuses to be paid in the first place, by giving AIG over $170 billion in bailout money. That was rewarding failure too, Mr. Frank, and on a far bigger scale. And while we're on the subject of failure, I'm wondering why we are paying Congress a salary at all, since the country is up to it's ears in red ink. Isn't THAT rewarding failure too ? I'm also wondering how any Congressperson has the cojones to complain about $165 million in AIG bonuses a few days after Congress passed the largest Omnibus spending bill in history, which contained $7.7 billion in unnecessary and wasteful pork spending. The hypocrisy is deafening.

Doesn't it seem odd that nobody in our federal government knew about the AIG bonuses until right around the time they were being paid out (they were paid last friday) ? The government owns 80% of AIG. AIG made the contractual obligations to pay the bonuses about a year ago, according to the information I've read. And the $165 million is only part of AIG's bonus payments. The total 2009 bonus payment schedule for AIG comes to $450 million. Treasury Secretary Tim "Turbo Tax" Geithner is said to be the one who negotiated the initial AIG bailout last fall, yet Turbo Tim acted like he knew nothing about these bonuses until LAST WEEK. Did Treasury even ask AIG about it's operating procedures before giving AIG all that bailout money ? Is Geithner merely incompetent, or is he lying ? When DID the government know about the bonuses ? Inquiring minds want to know.

Democrats say Republicans are the party of 'no,' that Republicans don't have any ideas, while Democrats are just overflowing with all kinds of brilliant new ideas. And that's true. Democrats do have all kinds of ideas. The problem is, most of them are very BAD ideas. Obama's endless $500 billion-$1.75 trillion annual deficits, killing the E-Verify system, removing the secret ballot from union voting, the Fairness Doctrine, the regressive cigarette tax hurting the poor, nominating a string of tax cheats to cabinet posts, driving energy costs through the roof with cap-and-trade, bailing out everybody under the sun, business killing tax increases, closing Gitmo without having any idea what to do with the

The Obama administration, in a unilateral move signaling it's intolerance and hardline attitude toward the Iranian regime, shot down an unmanned Iranian drone plane that had mistakenly ventured into Iraqi airspace. Obama and company were unavailable for comment to questioning reporters, delivering a clear message of disconcern toward critics of the Obama administration's increasingly aggressive policy of confrontation toward Iran. Critics say such policies increase the world nuclear threat and risk destabilization of the entire Middle East.

Yeah, right. Like you're ever going to hear that breaking news. Not a chance.

Two days after President Obama reversed the Bush-era rules limiting federal funding for embryonic stem cell research to existing stem cell lines, Obama signed the spending bill into law, which....REINSTATED the Bush embryonic stem cell rules. This is not a joke:

President Obama's stimulus bill is supposed to create two million temporary construction jobs over the next several years, at great cost to the American taxpayers ($250,000-$500,000 per job). Yet the Democrats, led by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), stripped the E-Verify program out of the stimulus bill. E-Verify is an internet based system operated by the Department of Homeland Security that works in conjuction with the Social Security Administration to verify a worker is eligible for employment in this country. In other words, E-Verify makes sure that illegals aren't getting those stimulus jobs. Apparently, Democrats think it's fine for Americans to pay for the construction jobs, but they don't care if Americans actually GET the construction jobs. With unemployment skyrocketing during this economic downturn, with 4 million jobs lost recently, and 10 million jobless Americans overall, this is inexcusable.

I mentioned President Obama's new embryonic stem cell policy a few days ago to illustrate how Obama politicizes an issue while pretending NOT to politicize it. I wasn't commenting on the policy itself, which can be fairly described as 'anything goes.' Obama places no restrictions on embryonic stem cell research, though he said he expects scientists won't be irresponsible enough to clone human beings (I wonder if the Tuskegee Airmen would agree that scientists won't be irresponsible...Dr. Mengele, please report to research).

Seeing as how cap-and-trade legislation is about to be implemented by our President and Congress, and 2,300 lobbyists (a 300% increase in the last 5 years) are vying for influence over the newer, greener, more expensive energy sector, I thought another perspective on

President Obama continued to stomp all over his own campaign promises yesterday, as he signed the $410 billion Omnibus spending bill into law. The bill, the largest of it's kind in history, increased spending by $32 billion (during a severe recession, no less. Up yours, taxpayers), and was littered with over 8,500 of those "little porky amendments," as Sen. Chucky Schumer (D-NY) calls them. Obama ignored his promises to reform the pork process, and ignored his promise to "go through the budget line by line" to eliminate waste. What we got instead was more wasteful big government politics as usual. We also got a bunch of mealy-mouthed bullspit from Obama in an attempt to rationalize it all away. Here's our Equivocator-In-Chief, talking about signing the bill:

Barack Obama spoke of it many times on the campaign trail, but there never was any such thing as post-partisanship. I doubt it was ever intended. Instead, what has been fostered is the illusion of post-partisanship, a political sleight of hand. Only 50+ days into the Obama presidency, the examples are numerous.

I don't usually take much stock in opinion polls, but a recent poll by Fox News got my attention. On February 17-18, 2009, Fox conducted a telephone survey of 900 registered voters, consisting of 375 Democrats, 319 Republicans, and 166 Independents. Here are some of the more interesting results.

Question - Do you think Americans are starting to rely too much on the government and not enough on themselves? Yes - 76%, No - 20%, Don't Know - 3%

"It only stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting the sacrificial offerings. Where there's service, there is someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice is speaking of slaves and masters, and intends to be the master." - Ayn Rand

Last sunday on Face The Nation, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said [Rush Limbaugh is] “the voice and the intellectual force and energy behind the Republican Party.” Emanuel also said Limbaugh has been "praying for failure' of the Obama administration. He went on to say "...it’s our desire that the Republicans would work with us and try to be constructive, rather than adopt the philosophy of somebody like Rush Limbaugh.”

Notably, nobody had asked Rahm Emanuel a question about Rush Limbaugh. Emanuel just volunteered the above information. Previously, President Obama said people shouldn't listen to Rush Limbaugh, as if the entire GOP is but a parrot of Rush's daily radio talking points. ABC News' George Stephanopolous and talking head James Carville, both refugees from the Clinton administration, have called Rush Limbaugh the head of the Republican party. You may remember that Stephanopolous was criticized recently for getting HIS talking points directly from the White House. It seems abundantly clear that the strategy to demonize Rush Limbaugh, and by extension to demonize the entire conservative Republican ideology (by casting Limbaugh as it's leader), is coming directly from that same White House.

Mitt Romney was my first choice for president in last year's elections. Alas, it was not to be. Romney's message was basically ignored by the media, which attempted (successfully) to marginalize him by focusing on the odder tenets of Mormonism. Funny how the odder tenets of Obama's church didn't marginalize him. Oh, I forgot, Obama wasn't in church on any of the occasions that Rev. Jeremiah Wright went on his racist, anti-american tirades.

In any case, Romney recently appeared at CPAC, the conservative conference. With the Republican party is such disarray, I think his speech is worth reading. Here are a few excerpts: